As communication systems evolve over time, digital data rates tend to increase. As a result, there is an ongoing effort to increase the speed and accuracy of analog-to-digital conversion to support the increase in communication rates.
High bandwidth and high spur-free dynamic range analog-to-digital conversion is a common desire across multiple domains but is difficult to achieve. With the advent of photonics, the analog-to-digital conversion can be improved beyond the electronic conversion by harvesting the photonics bandwidth and balancing the functional partition between electronics and photonics.
Corresponding reference characters indicate corresponding parts throughout the several views. Elements in the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale. The configurations shown in the drawings are merely examples and should not be construed as limiting the scope of the invention in any manner.